


Omokage

by Okuri_okami



Category: Hyakujitsu no Bara | Maiden Rose
Genre: Cross-cultural, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Loyalty, M/M, Nonnies Made Me Do It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 11:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12581236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Okuri_okami/pseuds/Okuri_okami
Summary: Mild und leise wie er lächelt...An apparition seemingly out of season, unlooked for but not unwelcome.Flashfic originally written for a "100 words of ghosts" prompt, polished up for reposting as a little Halloween treat.





	Omokage

Taki does not so much as stir the first time he hears the voice calling his name. His slumbers have been nothing but fitful and shallow for many long and weary months, and his waking thoughts in these darkest hours of the night are scarcely less haunted and yearning than his restless dreams. It is the heavy scent of tobacco, filling the air as the voice calls again and the clock in the next room chimes twice, that makes him sit up with a start, eyes flying open. 

Klaus is standing there beside his bed, limned in pallid blue light against the darkened room. His eyes gleam with their old hunger, but the hand he stretches out to ruffle Taki's close-cropped hair is colder than ice. Taki slaps the hand away, a sob rising in his throat until he feels like he might choke on it.

" _You...!_ Did you forget, Klaus? I told you that you weren't allowed to break first. You swore it to me!" He gasps for breath, waits for Klaus's baffled look of hurt to shift to sudden anger, as it has so many times before. But the expression that blooms on his face is instead a faint smile, soft and knowing and infinitely sad. 

Klaus reaches out once more to clasp Taki's hand in his own, bends his head down to press a gentle kiss against his fingers. His lips are so cold that the fleeting touch almost seems to burn. 

"Forgive me, my master," he rasps, in a voice that is at once achingly familiar and yet somehow strangely distant and hollow. "I returned to you as soon as I could." Taki clutches fiercely at his hand, heedless of the burning cold. His grip is bone-grindingly tight, but Klaus shows no sign of pain.

"I waited..." Taki whispers, tears stinging in his eyes. Waited, and waited, until he was almost past hope...and then a sudden, hysterical laugh bursts past his stifled sobs. He'd waited, and lost hope in the waiting, and in his all-consuming grief he'd forgotten that long-ago harvest celebration at Luckenwalde, forgotten Klaus and Hans telling him stories of their own homelands' holy festivals for the dead. 

He'd been waiting vainly in the wrong season for a Western ghost; the half-mad laughter bubbles up again, silenced only when Klaus pulls him close for a freezing, ravenous kiss that tastes of nothing but the salt of Taki's own tears. He flings his arms around Klaus's neck and kisses him back with no less hunger, all thoughts of purity and impurity cast aside. There is nothing left in his world but the numbing chill of Klaus's embrace, the icy mouth moving hungrily against his own, and Taki's desperate longing to thaw that gelid flesh with his own living warmth.

**Author's Note:**

> I swear one of these days I will finally complete and post the actual porn I am working on for these two instead of just wallowing in tragedy...but today is not that day.
> 
> Title inspired by [Episode](https://books.google.com/books?id=dGD-uSHHUhkC&pg=PA54&dq=nakereba+omokage+ni+tatsu&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiyxcrurJ7XAhXHOiYKHXUmCvEQ6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q&f=false) [46](https://books.google.com/books?id=dGD-uSHHUhkC&pg=PA55&dq=omokage+\(image+of+a+figure+or+face\)&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjG3q_prZ7XAhUE4iYKHV2gD_cQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=omokage%20\(image%20of%20a%20figure%20or%20face\)&f=false) of _[Tales of Ise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tales_of_Ise)_ :
> 
> _I cannot believe that you_   
>  _Are far away,_   
>  _For I can never forget you,_   
>  _And thus your face_   
>  _Is always before me._


End file.
